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While outreach services manifest in different ways, the interviews in this review support previously identified characteristics of outreach (whatever the model) that appear to be critical to the success of these services in reaching and assisting high needs disadvantaged clients.

Features identified by interviewees as contributing to successful outreach included: planned and targeted services

coordination and collaboration

services which connect and engage target clients services appropriate to legal need and client capability

suitable administrative arrangements, from intake through to referral effective referral pathways, and

sustainable, resourced and supported services.

It is important to note that these features of good outreach practice are not sequential, nor distinct. Rather, given that effective outreach practice depends upon the particular needs and circumstances of the target client group, a number of the features of good practice are necessarily interrelated.

Notably, the features identified by interviewees as important to good outreach are broadly consistent with the existing Best Practice Principles for Legal Aid NSW Outreach Services document, which itself is based on research evidence and practitioner experience. However, the extensive experience within Legal Aid NSW evidenced in these interviews, suggest some further refinement.

Planned and targeted services

Outreach managers and lawyers typically explained why outreach services were provided in particular geographic locations in terms of the level of legal need and how disadvantaged and isolated from services the community was.

Some interviewees described planning outreach using a combination of data and information, such as LASDD information supplied by the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW overlaying legal assistance data and SEIFA measures, to help identify pockets of socioeconomic disadvantage. ROCP and

outreach arising out of the CLSD partnerships were particularly informed by local legal needs analyses undertaken as part of the CLSD process. These needs analyses provide information such as that provided in the background section of this report.

Informants noted how duplication of services could arise when different service providers prioritise service provision to a geographic area widely regarded as having high disadvantage and high needs. For example informants cited the North West of NSW as such an area:

Everybody wants to focus on the North West, in Brewarrina you’re tripping over lawyers. It’s [a] very high need population, and everyone knows they have to go there. But no, they don’t [have to go there]… (Legal Aid)

In the Mid North Coast we noted geographic areas where different legal services had understandably identified the same areas as a priority for outreach services due to the relative high disadvantage, legal needs and isolation of the community:

[That other service is located] across the road from me … I haven’t really seen my numbers drop … [they] wanted to go where we were going, just on a different day. (Legal Aid)

Given that services available in a particular area often change, duplication can also arise over time. The need to identify existing legal services in a location prior to establishing an outreach service was also identified by informants as being important to increase coordination and reduce duplication between services run by different Legal Aid NSW practice areas and/or other legal services. One informant characterised this planning challenge in terms of avoiding people ‘acting like they’re lone rangers’ (Legal Aid).

The value of needs and service gap analyses to make the best use of resources and reduce duplication was similarly stressed in previous research including Forell and Gray’s (2009) systematic review of outreach legal services, and the Porteous (2012) review of the legal service component of two rural homelessness services.

Interviewees also described how the planning of outreach services involved assessing the feasibility of outreach services in a location. For instance, while a location may be identified as having high legal need and a gap in available legal services, it may not be a viable location without sufficient supporting infrastructure (e.g. suitable host agency, local services to build a client referral network). Thus, multiple factors are weighed and balanced in order to determine feasibility:

We looked at SEIFA data and other data and stuff … had a good think about where the gaps [are], where is it practical for us to get to, how can we be strategic about this so that we’re not going out to a really remote location and not doing anything else while we’re out there. There’s a bunch of factors we have to bear in mind … (Legal Aid)

As indicated above, population and service data can be used to assess legal need and gaps in services. However, interviewees also indicated that local community knowledge and understanding was ‘like gold’ for identifying legal needs within particular communities and the most appropriate location to target services. For example, local ‘on-the-ground’ knowledge can provide the interpretation of regional population and service data that is necessary to effectively target services:

… we puzzle over [the maps] beforehand, trying to work out what’s happening on different maps, and then you present it to a local audience and immediately they know straight away what’s happening and can tell you who’s in that community, what housing estates are where, where the transport hubs are, that’s why the fines are in that line because that’s where the train line is, all that kind of stuff. … it’s like a piece of gold, local knowledge is like gold. (Legal Aid)

Liaison with local communities (through CLSD partnerships or otherwise) and awareness of their needs also helps to identify where to target services:

… I went to one of the community development conferences that were run by the Council, and spoke to a lot of people and got an idea about what their needs were and what the services available were and tried to network from there. Then also it was something that one of the managers here had an opinion of, she thought it was another area of unmet need, and from there we kind of started the process of finding [a suitable location]… (Legal Aid)

Informants identified CLSD partnerships as a key source of information and distribution of both legal need and services in their regions22_{. CLSD members specifically meet to discuss population and} service data, and to identify local community needs and service gaps. Various socioeconomic

measures are examined — such as the proportion of people who are single parents, unemployed, low income and live in public housing — at postcode or LGA level within a CLSD region. CLSD members have nuanced local knowledge and understanding that not only significantly adds information to socioeconomic indicators and service data, but helps identify explanations and service implications. Legal Aid informants indicated that a number of outreach initiatives, including joint initiatives, tailored to local need and service gaps have arisen from CLSD planning:

… I [asked] who’d be interested in participating [and I had] lots of hands up. So we’ve got the workings of the clinic ready to happen there … So the mix of the clinic depends [not only] on what the need is, but also who is available. (Legal Aid)

Informants also identified CLSD partnerships as an efficient means of learning about legal services provided by other providers, including the wide range of Legal Aid NSW outreach services that may be provided from local offices and operating out of Sydney (Legal Aid).

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Local knowledge was also characterised as assisting to develop a ‘local place based solution as opposed to a Sydney based solution’, and of engendering the type of local community support vital for a

flourishing outreach service (Legal Aid).

The value of considering how services may appear from the client’s point of view was also raised in planning and targeting outreach. Effective outreach was commonly characterised by informants in terms of being ‘client focussed’ (Legal Aid). One practitioner described this in the following way:

… let’s turn it around from where we think we should be and let’s base it on (1) need, (2) client focus and (3) who’s there, who can provide [it], and if they’re not there, who else can we get in. (Legal Aid)

Coordination and collaboration

Previous research has consistently stressed the central importance of collaboration with other legal and non-legal services in outreach to local communities (Porteous, 2012, Forell & Gray, 2009, Dewson, Davis & Casebourne 2006). This is a theme that carries through all key features of effective outreach identified in this review, from planning to engaging with clients and communities, to appropriate service provision, effective referral and sustainable services.

One informant noted that from the public’s point of view, there may be little or no meaningful distinction between Legal Aid NSW, CLCs and the ALS NSW/ACT because it is common for public legal services to be conflated, ‘you’re all legal aid … the whole lot of you’ (Legal Aid).

Legal Aid informants also noted how in a number of communities, outreach services are often the ‘face of Legal Aid NSW’ and of public legal services conceived more widely:

… if child support is going somewhere and civil law is going somewhere and [the] early intervention unit is going somewhere — it’s one service, seen as one service, as ‘One Legal Aid’. (Legal Aid) The relationship between public legal service providers is an important aspect of the broader service environment. Informants noted how the MOU between Legal Aid NSW and the ALS NSW/ACT, and also the availability of the Aboriginal Field Officers, had significantly improved the nature of the working relationship between the organisations:

I think it is good … that those solicitors do have that good relationship with the Aboriginal Legal Service because as I said, even though it’s not our core business, with our Memorandum of Understanding [between] ALS and Legal Aid, we always make our Aboriginal staff available. … Where he can [he] at least drops in, in conjunction with the Legal Aid [staff] on all their outreaches at various times , and they ask him to come and sit in on the outreach with the solicitor with permission of the client obviously, and that is really complementary because I wish we had more of those positions (Other Legal Service)

Outreach lawyers described how they worked to foster good relationships with host agencies and other service providers in order to develop more ‘integrated’ services:

… we’ve really tried hard to do that and sometimes that’s not as easy as we would like it to be … They’re very busy. I’m optimistic that we’ll get there. That we’ll change the culture and [that] people will start to see us more as an integrated part of the overall solution … (Legal Aid)

I’m on a campaign to try and get people regular and working together. It’s very hard, it’s really hard work. (Legal Aid)

Efforts ranged from the very informal — having cups of tea with host agencies, chatting to other service providers at host locations to the more formal. As an example of more formal arrangements, in some ROCP clinics host agencies are paid to book in clients, undertake conflict checks, follow-up clients and collect data.

Agencies hosting some outreach clinics were characterised by informants as ‘partners’ in a mutually beneficial relationship:

… our general mode with our outreach — [its] seen as us getting into a mutually beneficial relationship with, I suppose, the partner organisations. (Legal Aid)

Informants cited benefits for both the service provider and host agency. On the one hand, the outreach service benefits from use of the host agency’s facilities, local community knowledge and networks; and on the other, the host agency benefits from being able to offer clients a wider range of services. For instance, a cross-section of informants highlighted how wider relationships and reputation across the broader service environment is critical for effective outreach services — affecting host agencies, referral pathways, service awareness and, perhaps most importantly of all, the ‘word of mouth’ underpinning positive reputation, rapport and relationships with target clients and their communities.

In practical terms, how outreach services are integrated or ‘fit’ with broader Legal Aid NSW services and with broader legal and human services — as well as the nature of relationships with host agencies — have consequences for effective outreach practice.

Services that connect and engage target clients

Informants identified successfully connecting and engaging the identified target client group as a key challenge but a critical feature of good outreach practice. The interviews revealed multiple strategies for successfully connecting with clients. Informants not only highlighted the value of having the ‘right’ location and host agency, but also the vital importance of building trust, reputation and rapport within target communities, and raising awareness of the outreach service.

Getting the ‘right’ location and host agency

Outreach managers and lawyers described how a primary strategy to reach target clients is to pick the right location or host agency:

When we set up, one of the reasons we would pick a location [and] a service to work with, is that we think they are seeing the clients we’re trying to reach … we think they’re seeing the most

disadvantaged clients in that location we’re trying to reach as well .... (Legal Aid)

Clearly, the ‘right’ location varies depending upon a range of factors, not least of which is the clients that the service aims to reach:

… finding the [right] agency that understands the client base … (Legal Aid)

Informants draw a distinction between ‘location’ and ‘host agency’ based on the nature of the relationships that an outreach service has with where it is housed:

For example, a ‘host agency’ will generally provide something more than merely housing an outreach service, such as also promoting the service, providing access to office facilities, or managing client appointments. In contrast, other outreach services may be housed in locations where there is little or no relationship other than renting a room in a building.

Informants reported that a wide range of locations and host agencies were used for outreach services: community and neighbourhood centres or other community service ‘hubs’ with co-located services, Centrelink offices, court houses, prisons and juvenile justice facilities, TAFE colleges, Aboriginal Medical Services, soup kitchens, ALS offices, alcohol and drug rehabilitation centres, libraries, churches, hospitals, women’s centres, cultural centres and other types of community organisations. Advantages and disadvantages of various types of locations or host agencies were cited.

‘Good’ or ‘better’ locations and host agencies were identified as those where the service is ‘wanted’ rather than ‘not wanted’ (Legal Aid). The right location was characterised by one outreach manager as:

A location that’s going to be safe for our solicitors; where they’re going to get some support from the organisation itself. (Legal Aid)

Support from the host organisation is also discussed below under administrative arrangements and sustaining and supporting outreach services.

One suggested indicator of a having the right location was the level of ‘self-referral’ to the outreach from the host agency, as indicative of ‘buy-in’, ‘ownership’ and commitment to supporting the clinic:

For me the beauty is when it is self-referred, because it means the agency is owning the clinic. For me that’s really important. (Legal Aid)

Another issue identified by civil outreach lawyers was identifying locations which may be more

suitable because they are more likely to reach people at a point in their lives when they are ready to act on their legal problems:

I think that’s another reason to pick a location … because if you can get people where they’re at that point in their lives. I’ve been interested in rehabs and health services for that reason, you might get people where they’re at that point where they’re actually a bit stable, and juvenile justice as well, and they’re at a point where they’re willing to do something, they’re a captive audience, their heads maybe a little bit clearer than it has been for a while and we might be able to make a bit of a difference, clearing up some of the issues and really help them to kind of sort things out. (Legal Aid)

A good location was also characterised as one that has an appropriate ‘cultural fit’ for the target client group, particularly where the reception staff is welcoming and clients feel comfortable:

In terms of having a good host agency, our first one … didn’t work because it wasn’t a cultural fit, and some of that was about what kind of face the person at the desk presented to the client when they came in and how well were they able to cope with people who didn’t fit the norm. So I guess the host agency also has to have employees that are flexible and are happy, more positive. (Other Legal Service) … it’s local for a start, I think it’s easy to walk into. It’s comfortable for Indigenous and non-

Indigenous, you’ll see black faces, white faces here, whatever. I think it’s a comfortable, easy place to walk into generally. (Host Agency)

Location was also discussed in terms of the broader needs of the client. Bearing in mind that legal issues are generally only a subset of outreach clients’ broader needs, co-locating services with other human services can enable legal services to be part of a holistic response to client needs. Some locations and host agencies afford more opportunity to connect and engage with broader human services than do others:

… when I look to start outreach clinics I usually like places like community centres where they’re a hub for various different services. (Legal Aid)

… the people who come in for legal, same as they come in for any other service actually, they’ll start to look at other things around the place. They’ll start to know we’re here if they didn’t know beforehand, they’ll come in and go, ‘Oh what else do you do?’ … I think it seems like a sensible or logical place to have it. (Host Agency)

Host agencies noted how in such locations, the legal service becomes part of a broader network: I’ll refer them without even thinking about it, we’re all referrers here... There can be legal issues, separations, DV, mental health, drugs, addiction … I can then refer them off to Legal Aid to get something done with that or the women’s refuge for DV or family services, things like that. (Host Agency)

Community or neighbourhood ‘hubs’ were cited by outreach lawyers as having some clear advantages, but also disadvantages, as outreach hosts. For example, some interviewees cited a range of problems that they had experienced providing outreach at some host agencies around NSW, such as poorly managed client intake and appointments, and issues with client confidentiality and privacy. These issues are examined further in later sections.